The fabrication of integrated circuits includes many diverse processing steps. One of the operations frequently employed is the deposition of a dielectric film. The film may be deposited on a relatively flat substrate, or it may be deposited into a gap between features patterned over or into silicon substrates. One method of depositing such a film is through plasma assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD). In this type of method, several operations are undertaken in a cyclic manner to deposit a conformal film. Typically, ALD processes include the steps of (a) providing a dose of a first reactant to a reaction chamber, (b) purging the reaction chamber, (c) flowing a second reactant to the reaction chamber, (d) igniting a plasma in the reaction chamber, and (e) extinguishing the plasma and purging the reaction chamber. As a result of the nature of precursor delivery/adsorption onto the substrate surface, a single cycle of an ALD process typically deposits about a monolayer of material. The operations may be repeated a number of times to deposit additional monolayers to reach a desired film thickness. Defining modes of operation that optimizes both throughput and uniformity remains a challenge.